Lasers are widely used in a wide range of products involving digital audio and video media, telecommunications, remote sensing, electro-optic countermeasures, and other products. Because of the increasing demand for products utilizing lasers, the need for high power lasers has increased over the years in some technology areas. It is also known that the there is an increasing demand for blue and green light lasers, i.e., lasers having a wavelength in the 300 to 600 nm range. Conventionally, in order to provide a blue or green laser with increased power, it was necessary to increase the complexity and size of the laser, resulting in a substantial cost increase. Thus, an expensive laser that filled an entire room could provide a desired power level, but was infeasible for many applications.
In currently known optical systems, light propagation is commonly controlled by optics based on reflection and refraction. Many existing optical systems rely only on reflection and refraction to achieve the desired beam transformation. However, it is known that diffraction can also be used to achieve beam transformation in optical system design. In diffractive optics design, surface (two-dimensional) profiles can be designed to manipulate phase front of an optical beam in order to achieve the desired beam transformation. For example, diffractive optics can be designed to very effectively correct spherical aberration that is inherent to conventional lenses based on reflection and refraction. In addition, traditional lens designs based on reflection and refraction are based mainly on three-dimensional structures, which have a higher degree of complexity in the construction. The three-dimensional structure also makes the integration of the lens component into optical systems more difficult and less compact.